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Numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses have been heard by Supreme Courts throughout the world. The cases revolve around three main subjects: practice of their religion, displays of patriotism and military service, and blood transfusions.
The Supreme Courts of many states have established the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses and other faiths to engage in the practice of evangelism. [1]
On July 11, 2011, the Grand Chamber issued a ruling for Bayatyan v. Armenia; Armenia was found to be in violation of ECHR Article 9 (right to freedom of religion or belief) in the conviction of Mr. Vahan Bayatyan, a Jehovah's Witness and Armenian national, for draft evasion. [2]
The Supreme Court of Canada has made a number of important decisions concerning Jehovah's Witnesses. These include laws that affected activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1950s and more recent cases dealing with whether Witness parents had the right to decide what medical treatment was in the best interest of their children based on their faith.
On November 15, 1955 (Chaput v Romain [1955] S.C.R. 834), a Jehovah's Witness member successfully brought action against police officers for disrupting a religious meeting and seizing articles. The entry and the seizure were made without a warrant. No charge was laid against any of the participants including the appellant and the items seized were not returned. [3]
On January 27, 1959 ( Roncarelli v Duplessis [1959] S.C.R. 121), the Supreme Court of Canada found that Maurice Duplessis, the premier of Quebec, wrongfully caused the revocation of Frank Roncarelli's liquor licence. Roncarelli, a Jehovah's Witness, was a restaurant owner in Montreal who offered bail security for members of his faith arrested by the Municipality. The Witnesses were frequently arrested for distributing magazines without the necessary permits under a city by-law. The Chief Prosecutor of the city, Oscar Gagnon, overwhelmed by the number of Witnesses being arrested and then released as a result of Roncarelli's intervention, contacted the Premier who spoke to Edouard Archambault, Chairman of the Quebec Liquor Commission. Extensive testimony showed the government actors believed Roncarelli was disrupting the court system, causing civil disorder, and was therefore not entitled to the liquor licence. [4] [5]
On June 26, 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a 6–1 decision saying courts must take into account the maturity and decision-making capacity of minors before ruling on enforced medical treatment. The case involved a young Jehovah's Witness, identified only as A.C., who was admitted to a hospital in Winnipeg with internal bleeding as a complication of Crohn's disease. Doctors sought a blood transfusion, but A.C. and her parents refused on religious grounds; child welfare officials moved to take her into care and a court ordered that she be given the transfusion. The judge said he was satisfied she was competent, but since she was under 16 the judge felt that her competence was immaterial to existing law. [6] Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the majority, "A young person is entitled to a degree of decisional autonomy commensurate with his or her maturity." [7]
On May 31, 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a 9–0 decision saying courts have no jurisdiction to review membership questions of a religious organization. "In the end, religious groups are free to determine their own membership and rules; courts will not intervene in such matters save where it is necessary to resolve an underlying legal dispute," Justice Malcolm Rowe wrote in the decision. [8]
On October 5, 2004, the Court of Cassation—the highest court in France for cases outside of administrative law—rejected the Witnesses' recourse against taxation at 60% of the value of some of their contributions, which the fiscal services assimilated to a legal category of donations close to that of inheritance and subject to the same taxes between non-parents. The court ruled that the tax administration could legally tax the corporation used by Jehovah's Witnesses if they received donations in the form of dons gratuits and they were not recognized as associations cultuelles. [9] [ better source needed ]
On June 30, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights found France to be guilty in violation of ECHR Article 9 (religious freedom) in regards to the 60% tax levied on all donations received from 1993 to 1996. The Court found that the tax assessment represented a cut in the association's operating resources sufficient to interfere with the free exercise of its members' religion in practical terms. [10] By 2011, the Government of France sought the Association to pay a sum of 58 million Euros. A representative of Jehovah's Witnesses in France stated that "no other major religion in France was subjected to this tax" and that "the Court saw that this was not a legitimate effort to collect revenue, but rather an attempt to use taxation as a means of restricting the worship of Jehovah's Witnesses." [11]
In December 2000, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses did not have to pass a test of "loyalty to the state". [12] [13] [14]
The Federal Constitutional Court held that transfusing blood to an unconscious Jehovah's Witness violated the person's will, but did not constitute a battery. [15]
In 1985, three students of NSS High School at Kidangoor in the Kottayam district of Kerala were expelled for not singing the national anthem of India. [16] The children were from a Jehovah's Witness family. Their father, V. J. Emmanuel, approached the Kerala High Court challenging the school's decision, arguing that their religion prohibits singing the anthem. The court ruled in favour of the school's decision. [17] Subsequently, Emmanuel filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court overturned the High Court's decision and backed the appellant, [18] ruling that Jehovah's Witness children could not be compelled to sing the national anthem in schools. [19] [20]
In 1998, The Watchtower reported that, "On March 8, 1996, the Supreme Court of Japan [ruled that] ... Kobe Municipal Industrial Technical College violated the law by expelling Kunihito Kobayashi for his refusal to participate in martial arts training." [21] [22]
According to Awake! , "Misae Takeda, a Jehovah's Witness, was given [a] blood transfusion in 1992, while still under sedation following surgery to remove a malignant tumor of the liver." On February 29, 2000, "the four judges of the Supreme Court unanimously decided that doctors were at fault because they failed to explain that they might give her a blood transfusion if deemed necessary during the operation, thus depriving her of the right to decide whether to accept the operation or not." [23] [24]
In 1993, the Supreme Court of the Philippines held that exemption may be accorded to Jehovah's Witnesses with regard to the observance of the flag ceremony out of respect for their religious beliefs. [25]
In 1995 and 1996, the Supreme Court of the Philippines granted an exception to laws regarding marriage to a practicing Jehovah's Witness because enforcement of those laws would have inhibited free exercise of religious beliefs. [26] [27]
After the fall of the communist bloc of nations in Eastern Europe and Asia, Jehovah's Witnesses were allowed to worship freely in those nations for the first time since World War II. However, after the 1990s, several court cases in the Moscow courts banned Jehovah's Witnesses in the Moscow district. [28] [29] Jehovah's Witnesses won a favorable verdict in the European Court of Human Rights on June 10, 2010, in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses of Moscow v Russia. [30]
On April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled in favor of a claim from the Ministry of Justice to liquidate the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. [31] [32]
In the United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of First Amendment law. In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946. [33] [34] Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties." [35]
The most important U.S. Supreme Court legal victory won by the Witnesses was in the case West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (1943), in which the court ruled that school children could not be forced to pledge allegiance to or salute the U.S. flag. The Barnette decision overturned an earlier case, Minersville School District vs. Gobitis (1940), in which the court had held that Witnesses could be forced against their will to pay homage to the flag.
The fighting words doctrine was established by Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942). In that case Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, had reportedly told a New Hampshire town marshal who was attempting to prevent him from preaching, "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" and was arrested. Chaplinsky admitted using the words, except for "God". The court upheld the arrest, thus establishing that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
On January 15, 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision of a lower court in convicting two Jehovah's Witnesses lecturers of disorderly conduct of conducting public speeches in a city park of Harford County in Maryland without permits. The Supreme Court stated that the initial conviction was based on the lack of permits that were unconstitutionally denied, therefore convictions were not able to stand. The initial conviction was declined for review by the Maryland Court of Appeals under its normal appellate power, and further declined to take the case on certiorari, stating that the issues were not "matters of public interest" which made it desirable to review. Chief Justice Fred Vinson delivered the opinion of the Court, stating that "rarely has any case been before this Court which shows so clearly an unwarranted discrimination in a refusal to issue such a license. It is true that the City Council held a hearing at which it considered the application. But we have searched the record in vain to discover any valid basis for the refusal." [36]
On March 9, 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned and remanded the Supreme Court of Rhode Island's affirmation of the conviction of a Jehovah's Witnesses member for holding a religious meeting in a city park of Pawtucket. The opinion of the court was that a religious service of Jehovah's Witnesses had been treated differently from the religious services of other denominations. The court stated that the city had not prohibited church services in the park, as Catholics and Protestants could conduct services there without violating the ordinance. [37]
In 2002, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to get government permits to preach door-to-door in Stratton, Ohio. The case was heard in the U.S. Supreme Court ( Watchtower Society v. Village of Stratton — 536 U.S. 150 (2002)). The Court ruled in favor of Jehovah's Witnesses, holding that making it a misdemeanor to engage in door-to-door advocacy without first registering with the mayor and receiving a permit violates the first Amendment as it applies to religious proselytizing, anonymous political speech, and the distribution of handbills.
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices. This decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the United States. The Supreme Court overruled this decision three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943).
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court articulated the fighting words doctrine, a limitation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.
The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Jehovah's Witnesses believe their allegiance belongs to God's Kingdom, which they view as an actual government. They refrain from saluting the flag of any country or singing nationalistic songs, which they believe are forms of worship, although they may stand out of respect. They refuse to participate in military service—even when it is compulsory—and do not become involved in politics.
Freedom of religion in Germany is guaranteed by article 4 of the German constitution. This states that "the freedom of religion, conscience and the freedom of confessing one's religious or philosophical beliefs are inviolable. Uninfringed religious practice is guaranteed." In addition, article 3 states that "No one may be prejudiced or favored because of his gender, his descent, his race, his language, his homeland and place of origin, his faith or his religious or political views." Any person or organization can call the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany for free help.
The beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses have engendered controversy throughout their history. Consequently, the denomination has been opposed by local governments, communities, and religious groups. Many Christian denominations consider the interpretations and doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses heretical, and some professors of religion have classified the denomination as a cult.
Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing believers the freedom to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.
Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Saumur v Quebec (City of) [1953] 2 S.C.R. 299 is a famous constitutional decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which struck down a municipal by-law prohibiting the distribution of literature to the public.
Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121, was a landmark constitutional decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The court held that in 1946 Maurice Duplessis, both Premier and Attorney General of Quebec, had overstepped his authority by ordering the manager of the Liquor Commission to revoke the liquor licence of Frank Roncarelli, a Montreal restaurant owner and Jehovah's Witness who was an outspoken critic of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. Roncarelli provided bail for Jehovah's Witnesses arrested for distributing pamphlets attacking the Roman Catholic Church. The Supreme Court found Duplessis personally liable for $33,123.56 in damages plus Roncarelli's court costs.
The Church of Scientology Moscow v Russia [2007] ECHR 258 is a European Court of Human Rights case, concerning Article 11 of the convention. In the case the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg condemned Moscow City Government's refusal to consider the Church of Scientology of Moscow for registration as a religious organisation, and as a result found that Russia had violated the rights of the Church of Scientology under Articles 11 when "read in the light of Article 9". Specifically, the Court determined that, in denying consideration of registration to the Church of Scientology of Moscow, the Moscow authorities "did not act in good faith and neglected their duty of neutrality and impartiality vis-à-vis the applicant's religious community". The Court also awarded the Church €10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and €15,000 for costs and expenses.
Jehovah's Witnesses experienced religious persecution in Canada during World War II because of their evangelical fervour and objection to compulsory military service. In 1940, Jehovah's Witnesses were banned as an illegal organization under the War Measures Act.
The issue of Freedom of religion in Russia is complex with a long and fraught history. As of 2023, Russia is a majority Russian Orthodox society, with significant minority religions within its borders protected by the Constitution of Russia. However, the international community often disputes whether this protection is carried out in practice.
The Bulgarian constitution states that freedom of conscience and choice of religion are inviolable and prohibits religious discrimination; however, the constitution designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the "traditional" religion of the country.
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however the law cites the “exceptional importance” of Orthodox Christianity.
Scientology has been subjected to considerable regulation in Russia including having books prohibited, and branches forced closed.
Law and religion is the interdisciplinary study of relationships between law, especially public law, and religion. Over a dozen scholarly organizations and committees focussing on law and religion were in place by 1983, and a scholarly quarterly, the Journal of Law and Religion, was first published that year. The Ecclesiastical Law Journal began publication in 1987. The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion was founded in 1999. The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion was founded in England in 2012.
A religious exemption is a legal privilege that exempts members of a certain religion from a law, regulation, or requirement. Religious exemptions are often justified as a protection of religious freedom, and proponents of religious exemptions argue that complying with a law against one's faith is a greater harm than complying against a law that one otherwise disagrees with due to a fear of divine judgment. Opponents of religious exemptions argue that they mandate unequal treatment and undermine the rule of law.
Lamb v Benoit, [1959] SCR 321 was a legal case that was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. Lamb, a Jehovah's Witness, was arrested for distributing religious pamphlets in Verdun, Quebec, in 1946, along with three other members of the religion. She was accused by the plaintiff of distributing copies of Quebec's Burning Hate, but the Supreme Court found no evidence of that specific pamphlet being distributed. Lamb was detained for a weekend without access to legal counsel. Local authorities offered to release Lamb if she would not hold them responsible for her detention, but she refused. She was then charged with conspiracy to publish sedition, but this was dismissed by a trial judge and that decision was upheld when appealed. Justice Abbott, a common law justice, concluded that the police officers had violated a Quebec statute through not acting in good faith. She was awarded $2,500 in damages. This was cited by Kent Roach, writing for the University of Toronto Law Journal, as an example that "courts were more generous in accessing damages than they are today under the Charter".
Persecuted for their refusal to salute the flag and enlist in the military, the Jehovah's Witnesses mounted a series of legal battles in their defense. Between 1938 and 1946, 23 of their cases were decided in the United States Supreme Court. Their victories strengthened First Amendment rights for all Americans.